Gail Collins: David, this is our last discussion for a while — I’m off on a book tour for the rest of the month and you will be conversing with Bob Herbert.

David Brooks: And Gail, when you say you are going on book tour, does that mean you are going on tour for “When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present?” Because if you are in fact going on book tour for “When Everything Changed” I feel reasonably confident that your publisher would like you to mention the fact that the title of the book is “When Everything Changed.”

Gail Collins: David, this is why I love talking with you. And I want you to know that I am not smirking because my book is done and yours is still in progress. The only good time for smirking is in that golden period when a book is finished but still sleeping comfortably in the publisher’s nest, making no demands on anyone. Then it comes back and it’s like a 2-year-old, never leaving you alone for a minute.

David Brooks: Well, I’m romantic enough to regard books as the highest form of writing and everything else sort of second best, so I almost envy you for being on tour. To me being on tour is like being in politics, except in my case with less hair: Giving the same talk four times a day, meeting nice people who make it tolerable …

Gail Collins: Ah yes, the people. It’s always nice to be able to go out and meet the readers, who are of course the most wonderful and blessed human beings on the planet.

David Brooks: Unlike those jerks writing in the newspaper to whom we pay way too much attention.

Gail Collins: Speaking of jerks, I’m afraid I’ve got to depart on a negative note because I need to register a long wail of pain and rage. It’s about George W. Bush.

I know we’re supposed to move on, and honest, I’ve tried to let it go. I have never once — well, until this very moment — dwelt on the fact that all our problems in Afghanistan might have been far less problematic if the last president hadn’t turned his attention away from the good fight to wage the dumb fight down the street.

Our problems in Afghanistan might have been less problematic if the last president hadn’t turned his attention to Iraq.

And during all this health care slog, I haven’t pointed out that this would be way, way easier if He Who Must Not Be Named hadn’t screwed everything up with those stupid tax cuts. O.K., I may have mentioned it once in a while. But not nearly as often as I thought it.

But this week I’ve been obsessed with energy. Watching the long struggle to get a health care bill through has made it pretty clear that the chances of getting any kind of effective energy bill passed are about nil.

That means we’re not going to reduce our dependence on oil-rich governments that sponsor or shelter violent Islamic fanatics. We’ll have done nothing to set a good example for countries that are currently unenthusiastic about cracking down on Iran because they depend on Iran’s oil.

Our economy will still hinge on the good behavior of nations whose leaders are corrupt, unstable or hopelessly dictatorial. The globe will still warm.

The odds of breaking out of this terrible inertia seem hopeless. You have written very vivid descriptions of how the House and Senate Democrats macerate bold ideas and turn a noteworthy leap forward into a mushy, uninspiring baby step in an uncertain direction.

And I have made my own little effort to point out how the House and Senate Republicans consistently make progress almost impossible — even progress in directions they actually approve of deep down in their teeny little hearts.

But even if these people were way braver and more principled than they are, it’s just a fact of life that legislatures are terrible at doing anything that inflicts pain on their constituents. And any decent energy bill would do that.

Legislatures are terrible at doing anything that inflicts pain on their constituents.

An energy bill is much harder than a health care bill because people do feel in their day-to-day lives that something needs to be done about health costs, and the possible pain Obama’s plans might inflict is long-term and theoretical. With energy, it’s just the opposite.

You would need one big whopping dramatic moment to get Congress to pass an effective energy bill — the kind of moment that only comes along once in every several generations. We had it after Sept. 11. The country was totally ready to make sacrifices to fight the war on terror. It would still have been hard, but we could have done it.

Instead, President Bush decided to invade Iraq and cut taxes. I am never going to get over that.

David Brooks: Far be it from me to get in the way of a blast at G.W.B., but I guess I think about Afghanistan a little differently.

When we first invaded the country, it seemed like this gigantic victory for high-tech warfare. We had a few special forces types sneaking around the country pointing lasers at targets and then F-18s would blow them up. That seemed to vindicate the Donald Rumsfeld high-tech war doctrine, which in turn shaped the way we fought in Afghanistan and Iraq for years to come.

The success of the surge in Iraq made politicians think the same strategy could work in Afghanistan.

I don’t recall anybody, Democrat or Republican, questioning that strategy five years ago. I don’t recall anybody saying we needed a classic COIN strategy of lots of boots on the ground.

Then two things happened. Iraq went to pieces, which reminded military strategists of COIN doctrine. The success of the surge made that doctrine mainstream in military circles.

As the election approached, Democrats needed to find a war they could support so they could be against Iraq without being called doves. They were willing to send soldiers and Marines into harm’s way so long as it would help them get elected in November 2008.

After the election and the success of the surge in Iraq, many military people decided it was time to implement the COIN doctrine in Afghanistan. At the same time many Democrats decided they no longer needed to be for that war, since the election had been won and their Congressional majorities had been secured.

So here we are today, with some Democrats now supporting the light footprint approach that Donald Rumsfeld had championed when this whole thing started. If this isn’t an absurd turn of events, I don’t know what is.

The reality remains, though, that the light footprint approach didn’t work under Bush and it wouldn’t work under Obama. It would lead to a Taliban reconquest and maybe a book: “When Everything Changed: What Happened to Afghan Women Under the Second Taliban Regime.”

Gail Collins: I think one of the reasons I have been so virtuous about not blaming George W. for Afghanistan is because deep down I don’t have all that much faith that anybody’s strategy is going to work out over the long run.

These are good points you’ve made, but I notice that you cannily avoided mentioning that energy matter. I’m going to come back to it in the future. Meanwhile, expect colorful postcards from airport kiosks.

Did you forget that John Kerry, during his campaign went around protesting quite a few times, blaming the one who should not be named, for taking away Green Berets from Tora Bora who were in believed to be in HOT PURSUIT of OSAMA.

Additionally, I also remember (without trying) that Democratic congressmen and congresswomen (Both representatives and senators) adding money to the bills for Afganistan war effort (probably on Pentagon Budget) when the administration (of the one who should not be named) had forgotten to ask for Afganistan appropriation.

The Afghan war was virtually won by 2002, except for letting Bin Ladin escape a few months later, and, had the Bush Administration stayed with it, it might have been completely won. Instead, the Bushies turned their attention to Iraq – a totally unnecessary war, a waste of valuable military resources and, eyes wide open, drove us into a quagmire from which we still haven’t escaped. Now, Iraq still a mess, our military – incredibly competent but very tired and very over-stressed – barely able to stay with Iraq, we’re trying to build up a war that has been mismanaged for almost eight years. And trying to pay for health care. And dealing with an energy policy that might have made sense in the 1950s. Collins has this one right: we’ll be paying for Bush short-sightedness and stupidity for a long time.

We had better figure it out.
I know that the best way to make a point in Washington DC is to write a letter to our Congressman / Senator.
All three of them in everyone’s case.
This is the best way.
Don’t hesitate to write.
It’s imperative that an energy bill be tied in with a climate bill.
This would be optimum.
If not we are denying our children and grandchildren a healthy life on planet Earth.

The “energy matter” that Gail refers to in Congress includes a rise of 10-50% in utility bills and 100s of thousands of more workers losing their jobs, as the unemployment rate (including those who have stopped looking for a job) is at 17%. But it must be nice to be off on a book tour, eh Gail?

As for Afghanistan, Obama and crew have had 8 months to implement a strategy. Referring back to big, bad, Bush is old and weak. As David points out, the Dems in Congress fully supported our previous actions in Afghanistan. Time for them to take some responsibilty for their decisions.

David, you TOTALLY avoided the issue Gail was addressing which is the pain so many of us feel about how Bush failed in his response to a once-in-a-lifetime event (9/11) to pass an energy bill that would have greatly enhanced our national security, moved us closer to peace in the middle east, helped us to lead the world in combating climate change, jumpstarted our economy with a surge in new jobs in the field of renewable energy, and on and on. Bush simply encouraged Americans to go shopping while our armed forces were sent off to carry out personal vendetta. And we now know how well that all worked out.

Bush left the country weaker in many ways, not the least of which was leaving a large part of the military supply-service up to the private (Haliburton, etc.) sector. Billions were wasted.

I note that in Afghanistan the Haliburton function of supply/service function has been left to the Afghan private sector:

5/10/’09 Washington Post
“Nothing about the Wanat mission went as planned. Brostrom* and his soldiers were supposed to have 16,000 pounds of construction material to build defensive bunkers, big earthmovers to fill seven-foot-tall Hesco barriers, and a five-day supply of water, a senior military official said.

”But the Afghan construction firm that was supposed to ferry the construction supplies and build the base refused to make the four-mile drive into the valley because it was too dangerous. A small Bobcat earthmover was delivered to the base by helicopter, but it ran out of gas after one day. Brostrom’s soldiers, working in 100-degree heat, chipped away at the rocky soil with shovels to fill sandbags and dirt barriers…”

I guess Gail believes stimulus is only a positive when implemented by Democrats. Were the Bush tax cuts not stimulative to the economy? The response is generally that the more affluent do not spend all of their tax cuts while the working class does. Even if true, the affluent do something with the extra cash, like investing and saving. These are also net benefits for the economy.

Democrats also seem to believe that any tax cut that benefits the wealthy is undeserved. Maybe taxes on the wealthy are too high! It is their money after all. When someone pays more than 50% of their income in taxes, that is not merely paying your share- it is outright thievery. The real injustice is that 47% of Americans pay no income tax. It is little wonder that they are all in favor of raising tax rates, since someone else will bear the pain.

Maybe David Brooks forgets because he was so enthralled with the idea of invading Iraq, but there were those who questioned the wisdom of those plans, and who questioned why we did not maintain our focus on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida. Mr. Brooks blithely ignored, or worse yet, denigrated those very concerns in his propagandizing for and promotion of the Iraq war. It’s quite the dodge now to paint those concerns as some sort of political posturing.

One more dilemma as we try to un-do the Bush energy and environment Negacy (i.e., a negative legacy):

Stopping sensible rules (they held up new central air conditioner efficiency levels for almost three years); Skirting around new vehicle fuel economy standards (and opposing California’s efforts) until passed in December 2007, after which they continued to oppose California’s efforts for stronger standards;

Early withdrawal from Kyoto (the doctors calle it Kyotus Interruptus) and then..

An active campaign [on the record, too] slowing the negotiations for the new, post Kyoto agreement;

Putting up all kinds of diversionary environment, energy, and climate schemes that went nowhere (“Freedom Car”, to push the development of fuel cells for vehicles, development already well under way; the Asia Pacific Consortium, set up to talk hot air about climate with the most important emitting nations with almost nothing concrete funded);

In short, the Bush folks painted the US into an energy/environment/climate corner at a time when leading nations outside of our borders are desperately seeking solutions.

I think the leading Bush people, particularly VP Cheney, really did not and still do not believe we have a climate problem, do not believe that a huge increase in energy costs to replace imports is a problem, do not believe that digging up most of Wyoming to make oil out of Wyoming’s shale and coal is a problem.

I saw our then chief negotiator in the Climate Summit in Bali, pouting towards the end. He must have realized how strange we looked as a one-time “world leader” in both technology and policy. My colleagues saw him in Bangkok two weeks ago at the preparations for Copenhagen’s negotiation. He was not smiling.

We have a big Negacy to overcome. The current bitter and divisive Congressional battle over climate and energy is one aspect of that Negacy.

1. When are those tax cuts for the wealthy, who need them
least, and who do not circulate them in the US economy,
going to be rescinded? How many schools, social
services, road repairs, and other worthy public goods
will be down the drain first?

2. Is David serious in alleging that democrats wanted to
send soldiers “in harm’s way” solely so that they could
get elected? Gee whiz. I don’t recall his pacifist
side being present as GW “Mission Accomplished”
Bush started these wars–and bolstered his own ill-
starred and destructive political power thereby.

Thank goodness. I don’t think I could have handled another in-depth Collins “thinkpiece” about Levi Johnston. I wonder how long she will try to blame all of Obama’s inadequacies on GWB. My guess is forever.

Mr Brooks,
In addition to cannily avoiding the energy matter, you also cannily avoided mention of General Shinseki’s warning that pacifying Iraq required lots of boots on the ground: In the order of 600,000-700,000 troops. Bush ignored his warnings.

On the other hand, Afghanistan is a collection of tribal areas, and has never had a coherent central government. More troops may simply create more targets for an illusory enemy.

So I’m reading through David’s response and – wham! – he stoops into the gutter for a now-familiar insinuation that Democrats are somehow not good Americans: “[Democrats] were willing to send soldiers and Marines into harm’s way so long as it would help them get elected in November 2008.” Gail raised points of policy disagreement – strong, visceral disagreement mind you, but straight policy disagreement. She could have stressed the fact that Bush and Cheney ramped up the war rhetoric over Iraq conveniently just prior to the 2002 mid-term elections, at a time when the Administration was most likely facing big losses, which would have been an obvious (and in my view justified) impugnment of their motives in sending soldiers and Marines into harms way, but she didn’t. So why the low blow? Why always with the character assassination? Just another pathetic example of the cheapening of political dialogue in this country, even in this forum.

I disagree with David and other conservatives who keep stressing how effective the “surge” was in calming the situation in Iraq. I’m sure it had some good effect, but what I see is that in Nov, 2006, the voters scared Bush into finally getting rid of the incompetent political crony Rumsfeld and replacing him with competent sober people like Petraeus and Gates and it was as much THEY, as the “surge” that improved the situation in Iraq.
In my opinion, we should have finished off Al-qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan/Pakistan in 2001/2002 when we had them almost cornered and almost destroyed. But Bush/Cheney did not want to miss the opportunity to get access to the oil in Iraq for the rich with fear and anger exploiting, false pretexts (Iraq had no connection to 9/11, no Al-qaeda in Iraq at the time of the invasion, flimsy – fraudulent evidence for WMD). Now the Taliban has retaken Afghanistan, and Bin Laden and the 9/11 mass-murderers are still making videos to taunt us.

The United States should create a modest and highly achievable mission for our over-stressed military. Perhaps
commit to creating long range peace and build schools and hospitals in a small region to set an example for the rest of Afghanistan. Our financial, energy and heath care problems require less military spending.

The Bush administration was a moral cesspool in every sense. Mr. Brooks can change the subject, but it’s a fact.

The Republican party – what can one say? Sarah Palin is your guiding light? Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are your deep thinkers?

America is a nation in steep decline. Let’s remember that Bill Clinton left office with a sizable budget surplus. We were at peace and the middle class had gained ground for 7 of the 8 years of his presidency, in terms of median income.

It’s time to move on. Many of W’s policies were failures and, yes, we’ll be cleaning up the mess for a while. But he’s not solely to blame — there are politicians of all stripes to carry that torch too, not to mention big corporations and we ordinary citizens who are lax in our responsibilities. Let’s focus on the frustrated future, not the angry past.

I guess it’s just funny that sending in special forces to set targets for F-18s as a strategy. It sounds more like a tactic to me. The problem was that there was no strategy to end or even continue the game once that particular tactic proved to be insufficient. Taking out the hard targets was the relatively easy part. Same went for Iraq. These things didn’t just “go to pieces” spontaneously, the fell apart because there was NO strategy. David, you are so good at dismissing reality.

RE: “…cut taxes…”
W didn’t cut any taxes without Congress. Even at the height of his popularity, he wasn’t that popular or powerful. Besides, there were many compelling reasons to cut taxes at the time. You need a new tune. This one’s old and scratchy.

Re: “…pass an effective energy bill”
You’re right; we do need an effective energy bill. But, too many currently in power have acceded to the NIMBY crowds, have allowed environmentalists to whine and obstruct without challenging their arguments or forcing them to admit that trade-offs must be accepted, won’t admit the benefits of nuclear, and have taken hard-line “all or nothing” positions. None of these are W’s fault.

In the nearly 365 days since the General Election, the Times has obsessed on what an awful president W was. That’s not “the audacity of hope”. That’s the “tragedy of regret”. As an editorial body, it’s time for the Times to look forward, expand its vision, and realize that there’s a lot of promise than what can be seen from within the DC Beltway or within 50 miles of the I-95 corridor. Come on out and take a look.

Actually David, I’m pretty sure that Army Gen. William Wallace said early in the Iraq invasion (shortly before it went to pieces) that they needed more boots on the ground. I think he might have said it in an interview on one of those 24-hour news channels.
Rumsfeld promptly shipped him off to Ft. Leavenworth, KS, to shut him up, if I remember correctly. Petraeus also spent some time at Ft. Leavenworth for questioning the Defense Secretary, until Gates came in and Bush realized he needed some military expertise that would be accurate and honest.